Key Feature List for the Impatient

• Explore a multitude of complex post-apocalyptic dungeons—a total of over 20 huge floors to explore! Discover loot, secret event scenes based on your current battle party, and more! 
• Become invested in a novel-sized epic adventure—a script of over 300,000 words and more branching dialogue choices than you can shake your boomstick at await! The adventure is filled with comedy, slices of romantic life, and the horrors associated with surviving the zombie apocalypse from a zombie’s perspective!
• All character art has been specifically drawn inverted as well, so you never get pulled from the story because someone's scar magically switched shoulders (inverted art vs. mirrored art—never spoken of because it is hardly ever utilized…until now!)
• Key events give you the chance to grow closer to the girls, and by doing so, you will access specific character story arcs that come with gorgeous HD images of the characters for you to unlock! Over 20 unlockable images in total—gotta collect 'em all!
• Six playable, awesome half-zombie girls lead the charge! 
• Nine endings based on your choices and how close you grow with the characters!
• No currency or stores exist in the post-apocalypse, so you will need to fill up your war chest by finding loot in dungeons. Be careful, though—weaponry will break if used too much! 
• Loot system supplies you with armor, items, and weaponry. Weapons come in both Common and Rare varieties—but both come with durability counts that indicate how much abuse they can take. 
• Rare weapons may have Skills attached, adding a bit of flexibility in balancing out an effective battle party!
• Exploit multiple enemy weaknesses simultaneously in the unique Exponential Exploitation battle mechanic! Increase your damage multiplier and utilize it for a one-time attack that can deal tremendous damage! 
• Set up custom battle strategies with the Macro function! Use this wisely in tandem with the EE System to create efficient tactics against your current roster of foes!
• When all is said and done, you will enjoy a 50-hour adventure unlocking everything!

 

The Visual Novel

The tone of the story being told in this 300,000-word visual novel is a balance between the familiar and lighthearted fun experienced in many JRPGs and powerful emotional revelations about the characters and their world. The main characters adhere to classic Japanese archetypes upon first blush: the childhood friend, the contrarian ("tsundere"), the class president (a straight-laced leader), the athletic tomboy, the buxom ditz, and the mysterious delusional girl ("chuunibyou").

Our goal is to infuse those core characterizations with contemporary twists and meaningful dialogue inside of a comedic shell that will enhance their complex and often tragic backstories. These characters have suffered a lot—both before and after their undead infections—and some of their experiences may hit close to home for some players.

During visual novel scenes, players will often be prompted to choose one of several choices to remain an active participant in the unfolding events, which can end up changing the conversation completely—not just a one- or two-line difference, but an entirely unique conversation!

 

The Dungeon Crawling

Dungeons include several maze-exploring gimmicks, such as one-way doors, pitfalls, and a variety of icons to denote different events and threats:

• Undead cupcakes represent the "set encounters" that you will run across while exploring. These exist in tandem with random encounters and often guard shortcuts or loot points. Difficulty can be estimated based on the color:
  Green indicates a common encounter 
  Pink indicates a challenging encounter
  Purple denotes something as tough as (or may even be) a boss!

• Exclamation icons indicate that there is a visual novel event for you to view. These may sometimes be hidden because certain sub-events require specific members of the party in order to activate, while other times they will lead you to scenes that will advance the main story.

• ​Treasure icons denote loot points! Of course!

Over 20 large dungeon floors are prepared for you to ogre through, so get ready to explore all the post-apocalypse locations that other games, TV shows, and various bits of media love so very much!

 

The Turn-based RPG Battle System

We're still working on the battle system, so we've only got a few early screenshots to show. But we've got lots to tell about the battle system mechanics!

Undead Darlings ~no cure for love~ uses a 3-member turn-based battle system that allows you to have full party control. Aesthetically, we are paying homage to Phantasy Star IV (a personal all-time favourite of NickyD's) by showing battles from behind the visible playable characters (as Reggie, you would be standing behind them, after all). 

Using the battle system's features wisely will help you to target enemy weaknesses—perhaps even multiple weaknesses at once—which is vital because of how this will take advantage of our unique EE (Exponential Exploitation) System! What makes the EE System different from other turn-based RPG systems is how it emphasizes exploiting several of an enemy's vulnerabilities at once to pump up a stored damage multiplier. This stored value can be used with a chosen command for increased damage one time only based on the amount multiplied (a multiplier of 4.00 = 4x the damage)—save it up and use it when you need that extra oomph to decimate your foes! But be careful, because if you use an attack that the enemy is not vulnerable to, the damage multiplier will be reset!

The system rewards you with a significant increase to the multiplier when you strike at more than one vulnerability with a single attack. How does one accomplish two things with a one attack? Imagine that you are facing off against a Rad Zombie, an enemy weak to both “Fire” and “Slash” attacks. Instead of having two characters attack at each vulnerability separately, they could make use of certain Skills that, when chosen together in battle, may activate a “Linked Skill” that combines the two attacks’ individual attributes.

Another facet to pay attention to in battle is your weapon's durability. Since it's impossible to find brand-new weaponry in the post-apocalypse, much of what you will find has seen better days and run the risk of breaking.

Say you pick up a "Police Baton (45)" in a dungeon. This is a pretty average item, so its durability rating is equally average—45 uses.
Now you pick up a "Riot Baton (20)" in a dungeon. This item is rare because it has some special stat boosts or attached Skills, so its durability is lower. More people will have tried to use such a good item, after all.

Once a weapon reaches (0) durability, it breaks and turns into scrap. We're still working on this aspect, but the ideal situation is to allow you to turn these bits of scrap in to Buck (not into Buck), who can use them toward increasing your carryable inventory capacity or perhaps even to restore some durability to other items (or add more to those rare weapons with low durability).

More will be added as we finalize the battle system engine and get features implemented!